Winter

The first morning of grass crunching as I walk,
Each step breaking through the top layer of frost.
The first morning of greeting the chickens,
By breaking apart the layer of ice on their water.

Too late to plant garlic - none for next year.
Too late to dig steps - it will wait for next year.
Too late to grow lettuce - they'll die off 'till next year.
Too late to turn compost - it will settle for the year.

This is the time for sewing, repairing, mending, making.
The season of baking, warming the house and bellies.
Now I can clean, organize, unpack, decorate.
The quiet indoor time of year.

Trying to get through the last of the fall chores before winter, I spent Monday spreading the left-over barn sand in the chicken run - covering the slimy, slick layer of mud and getting the sand off the dying grass. Tuesday, Daniel ran the leaf-blower over the property as Tilly and I stood suited up for helicopter training with eye, ear, and body protecting, practicing around the loud noise, fuel smells, high wind and flying debris. She was stoic as always. Then Amanda and I dug up the remaining half of the potatoes - about 5 gallons! I estimate we harvested about 10 gallons total this year and I am hopeful next year will be even more spectacular on the potato front, though we will have nothing but Safeway powdered garlic to put on them. Last year, I planted the garlic just before Thanksgiving I think, but this year it is already freezing out. The garlic is supposed to have three weeks frost free to get established before winter but I might be too late. If it warms up sufficiently today, I may haul a couple wheelbarrows full of potato dirt onto a garden bed and plant some garlic anyway - hope for the best. Also against mid-November policy - Monday I noticed a second hen spending a little too much time in the next box. I put two extra eggs in the box next to her and she quickly gathered them into her warm feathers. It looks as if we may be having December 1st chicks if she has any success. It's not the ideal time of year to start a family, but who am I to tell her what to do!?

While digging potatoes, we uncovered this little guy trying to stay warm in the pile and rather fat from all the bugs down there with him. Our potato patch has the happiest looking worms, bugs, and now lizards I have ever seen.

I'm thinking today might be the day to start wearing my fleece pink-elephant pajamas under my clothes. It might be the day to move as much firewood as possible into the new firewood shelter by our bedroom door and keep a fire going for the next 4 months or so. Eventually I still need to clean the goat barn for winter but... maybe after I build a fire.